


a girl on a horse

by hyphae



Category: Shadow of the Colossus, Sword & Sworcery EP
Genre: Gen, Sworcery Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyphae/pseuds/hyphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Girl has a mission. Spoilers for Sword and Sworcery, no spoilers for SotC. Written during Nanowrimo.</p><p>also written halfway through playing sotc so some of the implied lore is off</p>
            </blockquote>





	a girl on a horse

The young girl with her black hair and black-dotted white dress rode in on a tawny mare with a white spot upon its brow. The sound of hooves echoed on the walls of the chamber of idols. She whispered soothing words to her nervous mount, patted its neck. Gently she hopped down from the horse as they approached the dais. Gently she unloaded the horse’s burden, a heavy parcel that settled itself on the girls’s shoulder with a rattling of rough armour. The girl lightly hoisted her burden onto the dais, and gently, lovingly, pulled away the rough cloth to reveal the face of the Scythian.

She lay in state, her arms crossed on her chest, cheeks no longer rosy but white with the stillness of death about her, still clad in the same garb that she had faced the monster with to fulfill her duty. The girl ran fingers across the cold cheek.

The heavy cloth the Scythian was wrapped in fell to the ground and was swept away by a gust of wind and the Girl felt a chill on her back and turned. There were shadows rising out of the floor, in human shape, with malevolent intent; she brandished her shepherd’s staff at them, the only weapon she had on her. The shadows wavered, undecided, and pressed on toward the dais. The Girl was struck by a moment of panic for her burden that she had bore so far. She gritted her teeth and leapt at the closest shadow, swinging her staff in a wide arc; it sailed through the form like through a thick mist, and the shadow disappeared. The rest of them paused, and a bright light seemed to fill the chamber. The Girl hoisted her staff, breathless from the sudden exertion, ready for whatever else may come.

"What is it you seek?" An indescribable multitude of voices rang from the light emanating from somewhere beyond the roof of the chamber.

The Girl swallowed, and wet her lips before speaking. “I heard that here, in the far reaches of the land, there existed a power that could bring the souls of the dead back to the body.”

The voice seemed to laugh with a thousand laughs. “In the lands to the north, when a body dies, its soul is never returned. isn’t that the way?”

The Girl stared earnestly at the light. “This is someone important to me.”

"Very well," The light boomed. Sixteen idols exist in this chamber. You must destroy all of them. But, this task cannot be accomplished by mortal hands alone… Sixteen colossi exist in this land, each a reincarnation of these idols. Vanquish them and you will find what you seek…"

"But," the voice added, "It is difficult to see how you will accomplish this task… without the Ancient Sword…"

The shadows around her had gone. The girl looked around herself, then at the dais where the Scythian lay. She strode over confidently and unclasped the Scythian’s sword belt, slinging it around her shoulder. “I have a sword,” she said. “And a horse.”

"Thy first foe is…" the light complied.

—

The Girl strode to the Scythian’s dais once more and looked upon her face. She lay frowning as she always did, looked too serious, even for the predicament they were in. “I’m gonna do it,” the Girl told her.

"Come, Lamb," she called to her horse and mounted in one swift motion. She patted the mare’s neck. "We’ve got a long way to go, girl. Thanks for sticking with me." The mare called Lamb tossed her head gently in reply. The Girl nudged her gently in the sides to urge her down the cracked stone steps of the Shrine.

Outside the sun was shining in a glorious sky. The light shining in her eyes was pointing her toward a copse of trees at the far end of the plain, and the Girl urged her Horse forward.

—

The Girl heard the thundering before she saw it; her breath caught in her throat, and her heart pounded in her chest, when the colossus came into view. A mountain of a giant, more mountain than creature, grass lined its head and back and limbs and it seemed that vegetation grew amongst the ancient rock that made up its body… The Girl felt as if she was going to fall off her horse. She couldn’t ride her Lamb to weave in between the giant’s legs like that. The Girl brought her horse to a stop in a patch of grass outside the ravine where the giant strolled. She set the Scythian’s sword on the ground and pulled the long blade out of its scabbard.

The Girl grabbed the sword’s hilt with both hands and lifted. It hung in her arms, heavy, unfamiliar. She gave a few cursory swings and the sword’s tip wavered. She dropped it in the grass. There was no way that she could use this. The sword and shield were the Scythian’s weapons, used to stand up against the three-eyed wolves of Mingi Taw’s woods, the Grizzly Boor that the Girl had been told of with distaste, the Golgolithic Mass itself. It was no tool for a simple Girl of the mountains, who tended sheep. The Girl looked up at the colossus and thought about getting on Lamb and heading home, to the shack with the woodcutter and the dog, with the parcel she had set off so stubbornly with in tow, reporting failure. At least, then, the woodcutter would know she was alive, and that two lives hadn’t been lost in all the season’s tragic glory.

The Girl lifted her head to the colossus and met its yellow points of eyes with a thrill of excitement and fear, but also of understanding; she saw that the creature was a beast of knowledge and great, great life, and she closed her eyes and a Sylvan song rose out of her heart.

She sang of her love for the land and for her sheep, the tiny lives she tended, and the seasons and rains and the life that slept in the land, the Sylvan sprites, and the great spirit of the colossus she felt around her, its presence saturating the air. When the Girl looked up from her song the great colossus had descended on one knee in front of her, enormous head swaying, and as her song ended she felt a surge of courage and walked up to its great ridge of a nose and touched it. Her body resonated with the great beast’s ancient power. The colossus offered no resistance. The Girl took a step onto the grassy, almost fur-like patches of the colossus’s face, climbing to sit by its ear. She ran her hand through the grass-fur as she would pet her Lamb, who waited anxiously for her just beyond the trees. For now, she whispered. “Great giant, I’m here to ask of your power, to save one whom I love.”

The colossus made a low, gentle rumbling noise that shook the tips of the trees. Its head seemed to settle even lower, and a blue light glowed before the Girl’s wondering eyes, atop its crown, and toward the light she climbed. She ventured to touch the strange design from which the light emanated. The colossus’s voice seemed to boom in her head, and she clutched a hand to her temple, hit by a wave of nausea; the colossus was telling her, she could tell through the haze, that there was a price to pay. “I know,” she said. “I accept it. As she did for me.”

And as she did so the blue light shone brighter and then faded abruptly, and the great giant’s eyes darkened and its body grew limp, and the Girl stood struck by sadness and loss atop the head of the kneeling giant as tendrils of blue and black rose all around her, rose to the sky and tangled and plunged through her heart and it was like a cold wind and the breath caught in her throat and she felt the chill of death sweep through her body for the first time, and as she fell to her knees and the world grew dark around her she thought she heard the faint, faint breathing of a sleeping warrior, who was too good for this world and too good to leave it, and for her she would pay any price, even death.


End file.
